The students and job seekers protesting on the issue of cancellation of quota system in public jobs announced 'Bangla Blockade' program across the country from Sunday demanding reinstatement of the 2018 circular regarding quota in government jobs.
This announcement was made by Nahid Islam, one of the coordinators of the movement against quota, after the blockade at Shahbag intersection was completed at 5:30 pm on Saturday.
Nahid Islam, the coordinator of Anti-discrimination Student Movement, said, 'Bangla blockade program has been announced from 3 pm Sunday. Not only Shahbagh intersection, students of universities and colleges will come down at every point including Shahbagh area and science lab, Chankhanharpool, Neelkhet, Motijheelof Dhaka city and will make the program successful. Students will block the highway at districts and university level outside Dhaka.
Earlier, Students from each hall of the university gathered in front of the Central Library of Dhaka University under different banners at 3 pm on Saturday. Later, they took a huge procession from there through Hall premises-VC Square-TSC-Bakshibazar-BUET-Eden College-Home Economics-Neelkhet-TSC and stopped at Shahbagh intersection at 5 pm.
During this time, the students kept shouting slogans like 'blockade, block, Shahbagh block', ‘one demand, one demand, quota not come back' etc.
This time the students are continuing their movement with 4 point demands. The demands are:
1. Cancellation of quota system announced in 2018 and retention of merit based recruitment circular.
2. Expeditious abolition of unreasonable and discriminatory quotas in all grades of government jobs (except for underprivileged and disabled ones) by constituting a commission subject to the circular being upheld.
3. Quota facility cannot be availed more than once in the recruitment examination of government jobs and in case of non-availability of qualified candidates in the quota, recruitment will be done on merit basis.
4. Taking effective measures to ensure a corruption-free, impartial and merit-based bureaucracy.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
